James Lankford

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, this weekend I spoke with Specialist Micheal Phillips' mom. She reminded me that Micheal was the first student in 10 years to sign up for the Army from Ardmore High School. He was recognized as the Distinguished Member of the Regiment because of his capacity to keep up morale among his peers. I would like to leave the House with two quotes from Specialist Phillips. The first comes from a letter that Specialist Phillips sent to the assistant principal at Ardmore High School. Phillips wrote, ``I am doing this for my family, for you, for everyone, for America, to protect it from the bad guys.'' The second, as recalled by his mother: ``He said terrorism was like a virus. It had to be stopped. It had to be contained.'' Mr. Speaker, in light of yesterday's events in Pakistan with the death of Osama bin Laden, these words, both spoken and written by Specialist Phillips, couldn't be more timing or fitting. This young man's passion was to protect this country from the bad guys, the terrorists who then and now want to do us harm. Specialist Phillips ended up making the ultimate sacrifice, combating terrorism, protecting the country that he loved. For that, Mr. Speaker, I am eternally grateful and so is his Nation. The soldiers who carried out the operation yesterday, as well as the members of our intelligence community who have spent nearly 10 years hunting down the mastermind behind 9/11, are much like Specialist Phillips, brave and courageous individuals who sacrifice so much and risk it all, keeping us safe and preventing the bad guys from harming more innocent people. I have the utmost respect for each and every person in our Armed Forces and intelligence community, and I would like to express my sincere gratitude for what they do and have done. They truly make me proud to be an American. Again, I urge Members to join me in support of H.R. 1423. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from the great State of Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), a distinguished colleague and friend and the sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I am honored to get a chance to comment. I am very grateful we have an honest dialogue back and forth on different options. This is a unique moment for us as a Nation to be able to look at the direction of our country and at the way we are going to do budgeting, and I have great respect for those that will come and say let's look at other ideas, and I think that's how we should come to the table. Both the President, the Senate, and the House should be coming and saying, here are the options, here are the voices, because there are different voices in America that have different perspectives, and I think that's a good, healthy debate. Now, there are several areas that we will disagree on with this budget. We do agree that we should be working on deficit reduction. We do agree that debt is a serious problem in our Nation and we need to be able to work it down. It's how to do that. The budget that's being presented here, the amendment in the nature of a substitute, does tax heavily those that are wealthy, but it also has a burden that's on those most vulnerable as well. And let me give you an example of that: It increases the transportation tax, that gas tax. It not only adds an excise tax on gas companies, energy companies, so that the tax goes up, but it also adds 25 cents per gallon to the actual gas tax, and then at this time removes any other tax subsidies that are being piled on to any energy company. All those together are going to add a significant amount per gallon at the pump, beginning with just the basic option that's there of adding 25 cents. In addition, their recommendation is 43.4 cents for the gas tax itself. That is clearly a tax that's going to hit very hard on those that are most vulnerable in our society, the people that are driving to work, that are moms commuting back and forth. I think that's the wrong direction to go. That's such a large tax on a group of people that are vulnerable. So we do want to deal with the nature of our great deficits and of our great debt, but I don't think we need to be able to add that additional tax burden on the people that are very vulnerable.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I do appreciate the conversation about the balanced budgets in the past. Yes, Bill Clinton was the President there. He did sign that budget. But as this House knows, above any other place, this House is very aware that budgets originate in the House of Representatives. So Republicans were leading the House of Representatives pulling that budget together. We are proposing a similar thing again, that a Republican House can propose a budget, send it to a Democrat President, and we work together to start balancing the budget again. So that formula that we just discussed, I believe, is a very good formula. We should initiate that again and say, once again, a Republican House, do a great budget, send it over to a Democrat President, and be able to work their way through it. I would disagree with the cuts in defense. I think it is a very common statement that we can look and say there are issues with defense systems. There are issues with our acquisition process in defense. Where I would disagree is we should then take our defense and where we find savings, then move it over to deficit reductions. I represent an area around Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City. It is a great base that is strategic to us. Those planes that fly out of there are 50-plus years old. There are some airmen that are flying with the same tail number that their grandfather flew 50 years ago. This is a moment when we should not be robbing from defense and saying we are going to use that for deficit reduction that we need to be reinvesting. Robert Gates, our Secretary of Defense, has said there's $178 billion that he can find, and $78 billion of that savings is applied to deficit reduction in the Republican plan, and $100 billion of it is reinvested back into the Defense Department. There are good ways to do this that leave America safe and that make strategic sense. We think we should do those things.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I sit and listen to the conversation and the debate, and it is as if we are reading two entirely different documents. I feel like the Republicans are being portrayed as if they are going to have a horn grow out of their heads and immediately rush into homes and jerk out the poor and those that are on Social Security and the needy. If you read the document, we are dealing with two central issues. The first of those issues is $14 trillion in debt. Now, we can ignore that fact or we can begin to take it on and make serious decisions and have serious adult conversations. The second issue that we take on is this one simple principle: Do we have a spending problem, or do we have a tax problem in America? In other words, do we need to tax a lot more, or do we need to spend less? I think if you look at the rate of how we have been spending in America versus how we are taxing in America, you would say we have a spending issue. In our current time there are all these statements that are being made that Republicans want to protect the corporations, Republicans want to be able to give all these benefits to the wealthy. Here's what we want to do with the tax rate: Leave it where it is now. That's not a 30 percent cut. That's not anything else. Where it is right now, that's the rate that we need to keep.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. This is a little surreal to walk in the Chamber and be able to hear that somehow Republicans are interested in throwing old people off the bridge and that somehow old people--that we're focused on all of these things: that we hate those in poverty, and we hate our own parents, and we hate all of these other things. In reality, as a newcomer walking into this body, I walk into a Chamber saying, We came to get things done. And the driving factor that I walked in this Chamber with is the reality that we have $14 trillion in debt. Now, that's hard to be able to wrap your head around, $14 trillion in debt. So the way I try to wrap my head around it is with an old illustration from me personally. I remember being 9 years old watching the Voyager spacecraft take off and thinking it will take forever for the Voyager spacecraft to get all the way up to Saturn and to Jupiter. It would take all of 10 years to get out there. But I remember when those pictures were done, and they were sent back, and how significant they were. Now, just imagine this: in 1977 when the Voyager 1 spacecraft took off, if it started dropping a dollar a mile from the time it took off, how long would it take it to drop $14 trillion? Now, remember, the Voyager spacecraft has been out 34 years. It is still operating. It has left the solar system now. It is past Pluto, headed out of the solar system. If it dropped a dollar a mile since the time it took off, it will drop $14 trillion 41,801 years from now. A spacecraft that's already flown out of our solar system will have to continue flying at the same speed another 41,801 years from now. It is surreal for us to stand here and to be able to not take seriously the amount of spending that we do and how out of control we really are. This is not just a tax problem. This is a long-term issue that's not Republican and Democrat. We have both spent too much money. It is time for us to pull our own budget back and to take this seriously.

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam Chair, the House budget that we're proposing tonight from Republicans is a budget that will take discretionary spending back to the pre-2008 level and begin to deal with our spending issue that we have as a Nation. We have increased our discretionary spending 25 percent over the last 2 years. We're trying to move it back to where we were a few years ago and then allow that to be able to grow with inflation. We're focusing on freezing in the Federal workforce. It's a recommendation done by the President's own debt commission. And taking that issue on that the President and the debt commission gave to say, how do we need to handle our Federal workforce? It has increased by 140,000 just in a single year. And it begins to walk through the process of what do we do with our social safety net to make sure that the social safety net is still there in the years to come. We believe there needs to be a social safety net, but as our chairman has said multiple times, that social safety net should be a safety net and not a hammock. And it should allow people to be able to go through that process to find a safe place and a safe harbor for a period of time until they're able to get back on their feet. That's a good thing for us to be able to do as Americans, and we need to find ways to be able to protect that in the days to come. But part of the struggle that we have with that is finding ways that that doesn't become a place where people are trapped indefinitely. So we would like to be able to implement some of the reforms of the Clinton-era time when temporary assistance for needy families was transitioned in, and it has become such a great success on helping families be able to transition into work. The best way we can take care of families that are in the poverty area is not through a program from the government; it is with a great job so they have great self-esteem and they can be engaged and be a part of our ongoing economy. The President's own debt commission made the comment that the Nation is broke, and what we need to do is focus on reducing spending and dealing with how we handle what we do as a Nation and what we're trying to accomplish. As far as the issues about Medicare, we've been very clear through this process. We're dealing with Medicare changes for those that are 54 years old and younger. And for those that are in poverty and facing disability, those individuals would have full coverage, and as they're more wealthy, yes, we would means test that. We have an expectation that wealthier senior adults would be able to help cover more of their own Medicare; but for those that are in poverty or near the poverty range, they would be supplemented more to make sure that we're taking care of them, and it would be a guaranteed coverage like they have now so that they don't have to worry about not being able to get Medicare. They would be able to have it, and that would be secured for them. We have one more major thing that we've all discussed. We all want taxes to be more simple in the process. Tomorrow is April 15, all of our favorite day in America, dealing with the taxes and dealing with the process. And it's not a matter of being a great citizen. It's just a matter of going through the tax forms. We need to simplify this process and make it more flat, more level and more fair for people across the board. So that's a major part of it. We're not talking about raising taxes $6 trillion. We're talking about keeping tax rates where they are and finding a way to be able to honor people and honor families.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, I would like to also continue on this same conversation. The central question that we have to answer is do we have a debt and deficit problem in America or do we have a spending problem in America? Words like balanced approach, investment in America's future, and the often quoted ``shared sacrifice'' confuse the real issue. The focus of the House of Representatives is not about just reducing the deficit; it is about reducing spending so we can pay off the debt that we have. Raising taxes on Americans now would be like the man who ran up a huge credit card bill and then went to his boss to tell him that he needed a raise to pay off his bills. His boss would most likely respond, You don't need a raise. You need to get your family on a budget and cut your spending to what is essential. For the past 50 years, the Federal Government has taxed Americans at around 18.5 percent of GDP, no matter what the rate is. The current proposal from the President suggests a tax requirement closer to 22 percent of GDP. To close the deficit gap, all income taxes will have to double or corporate taxes will have to increase five fold. A tax increase on the wealthy may make some people feel better that they're sticking it to the man; but, historically, tax increases only lead to more government spending. And, ultimately, it will not solve the debt crisis. Washington likes handing out other people's money for noble causes. Here is a novel idea: How about dealing with our existential problem? We spend too much. In 2009, 140,000 new Federal employees were hired. During the previous 10 years there was no change in employment in the Federal Government. The number of Federal contractors has increased 25 percent since 2006. In 4 years, discretionary spending has increased 25 percent. In that same 4 years, Medicare and Medicaid spending has increased by 50 percent. None of that includes the special TARP or stimulus funding, which would make the cost to the taxpayers even higher. We cannot spend our way to prosperity. We have to get back to getting a handle on our debt and deficit and our basic spending. The reason the House budget has gained so much traction is that it does what Americans know in their gut must be done. It cuts spending. Finally, someone is saying what many have felt. We cannot solve the budget problems quickly without significant spending changes.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, I rise to discuss the debt we are dealing with as a Nation. It is time to stop ignoring the debt problem that we have in America. The budget we released this morning is focused on solving our fiscal problems, not scoring political points. Key elements: fiscal responsibility; understanding this is not our money; it's owned by the American people; finding common ground with the President's debt commission and bipartisan CBO proposals. We have some areas where we've agreed, and those areas are included. Shocking as it may seem, conservatives have also included some practical solutions to solve our long-term systemic issues with entitlements and welfare. Our focus was to protect programs that are working, encourage work for every person who's able to work, and set a course for future economic stability. It's also focused on cutting spending. Raising taxes on Americans to fund more government would be like a family running up a huge credit card bill and then going to their boss at work to tell them they need a raise to pay off their credit card. Their boss would most likely respond, You don't need a raise. You'll just spend more. You need to get your family on a budget and you need to cut your spending to what's absolutely necessary. That's what we must do. Some in Congress have already called this proposal extreme. Well, I'd have to tell you, I agree. I think this budget is extreme--extremely responsible, extremely forward-thinking, and extremely overdue.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 166, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, I rise to challenge this body, and I hope that my message is well received. This Nation was founded on the rules of the Constitution, not the opinions of Republicans and Democrats. Our decisions are judged in the light of the traditions of the past and the precedent that it sets for the future and the future generation. Mr. Speaker, according to our Constitution, a President cannot pick and choose which parts of the law he prefers. The executive branch does not write the law nor choose the law. It enforces the law. The basic function of every President is to enforce the law. Every executive branch agency has its foundation in a short and clear statement from the Constitution stating this: He--that means the President--shall take care that the law be faithfully executed. A President can petition for laws to be changed. He can complain about a law. He can encourage passage of new law. But he cannot just ignore the law or write new law. Only the courts can throw out a law, and only Congress can write a law. The President and the Department of Justice cannot unilaterally decide not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. For decades, the Congress has been donating their constitutional powers to the executive branch by giving increased rulemaking authority to the different agencies. Our agencies now write rules that look more like legislation than regulation. We have allowed people to serve in ``Cabinet lite'' level positions without Senate approval. We have exponentially increased the budget for White House staff. And now the President wants to set a new precedent that he alone can determine which laws he likes and he does not like. With this action, the President has invented a retroactive veto on all previous Presidents and all previous congressional acts. It is ultimately ironic that the executive branch states that several lower courts have rejected the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional, so they are accepting the lower court rulings over a higher court. In the past year, the health care law was ruled unconstitutional, but the Federal Government is pressing forward. The administration was instructed by the courts to lift the drilling moratorium in the gulf, but they stalled. It is apparent that this administration is bent on placing its political preferences ahead of the courts, ahead of the legislative branch, and the majority of the American people. Both parties need to understand the precedent that's being set by the President's choosing to not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. My Democrat friends should imagine for a moment, what if when a Republican President takes the oath and he instructs HHS and all other agencies not to enforce ObamaCare, though it's the law of the land, because some lower court rejected it? They would be outraged, rightfully so, because currently it is the law of the land. A President cannot just unilaterally throw it aside. Before this conversation is spun as a partisan issue, let me remind everyone, though, that the Defense of Marriage Act passed the House and the Senate by a wide bipartisan majority and was signed into law by a Democrat President. This is not only a slap in the face to our constitutional system; it is a slap to Republicans and Democrats who expressed the will of their districts and States on an issue that has been settled in law. The people spoke through Congress, and one person, even a President, cannot undermine the will of the people. At least not in the America that I grew up in. I do not think we will fully understand the implications of this action if we allow it to stand. We must not act partisan now and regret it later. This is not the way to deal with the gay marriage debate, for the President to just sweep it aside and say, ``I will not enforce the law.'' Many in this Chamber are well aware of my traditional view of marriage and my Biblical world view. I am unashamed of my personal faith in Jesus Christ. I believe that words have meaning, though, and that the meaning of marriage is the union of a man and a woman. The Defense of Marriage Act codified that definition in law, representing the belief of a majority of Americans. This issue is well beyond faith, though, or a social issue or even a political issue. Marriage is now not only the center of a national debate, it's now the center of a constitutional debate. Weeks ago some members of the press suggested that Republicans would ignore the budget and focus on social issues. I find it ironic now that the President has submitted a budget that will raise the national debt to $26 trillion, by his own numbers, and he has decided to change the national debate from fiscal issues to social issues and gay marriage. As a Congress, we cannot demand of the executive branch, which is a coequal branch of government. But I believe we must require the executive branch to fulfill its oath of office and constitutional requirement to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding. I do rise in support of H.R. 72. When the framers of the Constitution started writing, they began article I, section 1, with a simple and clear statement: ``All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.'' After a great debate, the priority concern was the possibility that some other entity other than Congress would attempt to exercise legislative powers or compel their will on American citizens. If laws could be made by someone who has no accountability, they could create any rule based on their own preferences and force unchecked spending on the will of their fellow citizens without accountability. This is an unfunded regulatory mandate. It is my concern that in the race to regulate, we have moved from regulating American business to running State and local governments and have made them, in effect, Federal Government extension employees charged with regulating all aspects of public and private business. Every stage of business is now regulated, from how to interview an applicant to how to fire an employee. Government paperwork abounds. Every company needs compliance officers and attorneys just to make sure they are running their business based on the preferences of someone from some agency they have never even heard of. That is not real job creation. American companies want to produce products and services, not hire de facto government employees. We need real job growth. It is time for Congress to assume its responsibility. If there is a grievous regulation, it shouldn't be EPA's fault, HHS's fault or even the executive branch's fault. It is ours. Let me give you some examples of these unfunded mandates in my own home State of Oklahoma. The City of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is currently drowning under a new EPA requirement to filter the storm water. That is correct, filtering the rainwater. The City of Bethany, Oklahoma, spent over a quarter of a million dollars in 1987 to put in two water wells, only to be required a few years later to take them out by EPA because of their wastewater. Then EPA changed their wastewater requirements in 2006 and cost the City of Bethany over $9 million. The street signs in Bethany must also change to a new type of reflective material to meet new DOT regulations, costing the city who knows how much. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation has to go through millions of dollars of hoops to tear down an old bridge to replace it with a new bridge in the exact same spot. They have to navigate the Clean Water Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and many more, while people drive over an old, deteriorating bridge. I will tell you, I will be the first to promote wheelchair ramps on sidewalks, but Federal interpretation of ADA to construct accessible curb ramps at intersections and other locations has been invoked where no connecting sidewalks even exist. In Oklahoma City, where I live, such a wholesale directive results in curb ramps that terminate in adjacent vacant lots, to a ditch, embankments, and sometimes straight into a light pole. The desire to do the right thing sometimes leaves no room for exercising common sense. We are regulating common sense out of Federal, State and local governments, and we are costing State and local taxpayers millions in unfunded mandates. Sometimes our regulations don't cost money but they do cost trust in the relationship between citizens and their Federal Government. Last Christmas, a community bank in Oklahoma was told by a Federal regulator that their employees had to take off the buttons that said ``Merry Christmas, God is with us,'' and remove the scripture verse announcement on their board because it might cause someone to feel discriminated against that walked into the bank. This is a privately owned business in America. Every person in that community has lost trust with the commonsense leadership of the Federal Government because we have allowed unchecked regulation. The assumption that Federal agencies are the only people who care about clean water, clean air, fair business practice, et cetera, is arrogant and misinformed. I don't know anyone who loves the air, water and land in Oklahoma more than Oklahomans, and I am confident that is true for other States as well. We must take a serious look at unfunded mandates and regulations. We need to hear the cry of our cities, counties and States where they say please stop the flood of regulations. They want two things: predictability and clearly defined limited scope. This is a bipartisan issue. We have common agreement with the other members of my subcommittee, and we will immediately take this up next Tuesday in our first subcommittee hearing.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you for yielding time. Madam Speaker, the repeated diatribe from Members on the other side of the aisle that somehow they are the only individuals in this Chamber who care about the health of American families demonstrates again the deep-seated partisanship that we must work to defeat. We all want great health care in America. We hear the American people loud and clear. They don't like ObamaCare, but they do want something to be done. We must have real national tort reform to reduce the costs of defensive medicine. We must encourage medical innovation to deal with the FDA approval process that covers any new discovery in paperwork, costing $1 billion a drug just to get it through the FDA process. We must open up more options for insurance carriers, allowing someone who is frustrated with the service or the cost or quality of his carrier to fire them and to get a new insurance provider. We must reject price fixing as a cost-cutting solution. We must allow every American to choose their own doctors, even pay their doctors directly if they choose to do that. We must give senior Americans more choices in physicians who accept Medicare patients. We must provide States with greater flexibility; and we must deal with portability, high risk, and preexisting conditions. Republicans have friends and family who are dealing with the same medical issues that Democrats deal with. Suffering, disease, and pain have no respect for political affiliation. We just believe that, if you are sick and hurting, you should contact your doctor, not Washington, DC, to see what to do next. Let's surprise America. Let's work together, and let's get something done. Let's show them that, even with a divided House and Senate, we can reject the gravitational pull of politics, that we can put aside our differences, and that we can work together for the good of those who are most vulnerable.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I thank my colleague from New Jersey for hosting this time in the House Chamber. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of one of the most basic functions of any government. Three thousand years ago, a mom taught her son, the king, how to be a wise ruler. We have her words written down in Proverbs 31, where she told him, ``Speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.'' Two hundred thirty-five years ago, our founders wrote a despot king, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'' This truth that all people have the right to life is so obvious, so clear that they called it ``self-evident.'' But in America, millions of people cannot pursue happiness and they cannot appreciate liberty because their first God-given right was denied--life. In recent days, discussion from the left has turned to reducing the numbers of abortions. I applaud this line of thinking because it admits one thing--abortion is wrong. It destroys a life and it devastates a future of a mom. I ask: Why should abortion be reduced if it is just another medical procedure to remove some unwanted tissue from a woman? If it is just tissue, what does it matter? No one is saying that we need to reduce the number of skin moles being removed or reduce the number of warts that are removed, that that is unconscionable. Why? Because we know that a wart is unwanted tissue. But a fetus, that is a baby. We can use any euphemism, like ``fetus'' or ``dividing tissue'' or ``embryo,'' or just simply ``inconvenience,'' but no one comes to the family and says: How is the embryo? No one says to a pregnant woman or hears a pregnant woman say: Excuse me, I just felt the fetus kick. No one comes to a baby shower and says: Here is a gift for your inconvenience. Say what you want, split hairs all you want, we know that is a baby. Decades ago, we could not look into the womb and see the development of the child. People were told the child in the womb was just like a chicken embryo. But now, with 3-D ultrasound, we can look into the darkness of the womb and see a child kicking her feet, sucking her thumb. We can count her fingers and toes and watch their tiny heartbeat. At 20 weeks, we can look at the child inside and even say boy or girl. Why? Because it's a child, not just an embryo. The difference between an adult and a child in the womb is just time. They are a person who must be given their most basic of all human rights--life. I strongly support defining life at conception. I strongly support adoptions. I strongly support crisis pregnancy centers and Hope Pregnancy Centers, which are doing such a great job all around the country and all around my district in Oklahoma. It is time to cut off Federal funding for abortion. Why is it in America that taxpayers who are mortified at the thought of abortion are required to also give their tax money to fund abortions around the world? When a constituent comes to me and asks, Why are my taxes so high? I have to tell him, Partially because your government is spending some of your hard-earned money on abortion funding around the globe. Why is it in this Chamber today we can debate for hours if an infant should be guaranteed health care coverage, but yet some of the same individuals who demand insurance protection for that child would find no issue in killing that infant only moments earlier when it was in the womb? Earlier today, a clinic in Philadelphia was raided, where a physician was arrested for fully delivering infants 6, 7, 8 months into the pregnancy and for stabbing with scissors those children after they had been delivered--today. This is the United States of America. This issue is not about oppressing women or denying choice. It is about protecting children and honoring the self-evident truth that everyone is endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including and especially life. Almost four decades ago, individuals in this Chamber laid the foundation for a court ruling that has stripped the womb of its glory and its majesty. For decades since, legislators in this Chamber have protected bald eagle eggs, migrating insects, snail darters, and rare flowers, but we refuse to protect children. May God have mercy on our Nation, and may we awaken one day to the horror of what abortion policies have done to our Nation. We would rather protect our fundraising, our leadership and our convenience than protect the unborn child. This is not a difficult choice. It is a clear choice--and we should choose life.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2. A few months ago, I visited with a small business owner in Oklahoma who has five employees but whose health care costs for 2011 will go up by 50 percent. When he asked about that, the reason he was given was: the cost of implementing the new health care law. Another business owner told me he would not hire new employees until he could figure out what the cost of health care is going to be, so he will just stop hiring. While some in this Chamber talk about universal coverage and cost controls, many people in my district are frustrated with this so-called ``solution.'' Every person should control his own health care option and opportunities. Every young student should have the motivation to go into medical research and the practice of medicine. As our population ages, every doctor should have greater incentives to take on Medicare patients. We need to deal with the root causes of health care costs and not just move the costs to the States and put in price controls on doctors and hospitals. Shared pain is not what America was looking for. America was looking for solutions. The new health care law will create long- term budget issues in the days to come. From a budget perspective, you can cook the numbers all you want, but this bill will dramatically increase our Federal debt again. We need answers, not bigger problems. This is the United States of America. I believe we can do better than this. It is time to repeal this law and start the hard work of solving the cost issues of health care delivery. With that, sir, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. ``Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.''